Angela's Photo Blog

After a week's time, (was busy this week), I have finished 20 of the 21 lessons, and will finish the last today, but the last is mostly a "refresher" lesson.

I chose this book to be my first Photoshop book after taking a 3 year long learning break, because I thought it would be the fastest to get my Photoshop photo skills up to speed.

At first I was a bit worried, as I'm spending the time this year to take perfect exposures, and wondered why I'd need to have a book to help me photoshop photos.

Worry not!

First of all, nobody is perfect, weather is not always perfect, things happen. Maybe you have old photos that are under/over-exposed... Maybe you got a great shot of a landscape but the sky didn't cooperate... Maybe you forgot to set the right aperture to blur out the background... Maybe the water in that lake looked lame... Maybe that flower looked a bit uninspired... Maybe you didn't have your white balance set right... Maybe you want your portrait model's face to look radiant...

This book will take you through the steps to make your photos look stunning! The title says 7-Points, but it wasn't quite that simple, each step might have many mini-steps. Here are the 7 Points:

1. Adobe Camera Raw Processing

2. Curves Adjustment

3. Shadow/Highlight

4. Painting with Light

5. Channels Adjustments

6. Layer Blend Modes and Layer Masks

7. Sharpening Techniques

The best thing about this book is it takes you through 21 different photos and applies the 7-Point system to them. Halfway through the book you already find yourself automatically doing the right things.

I learned a few great Photoshop tricks and in all, I have to say it was worth it!